My Eternal Struggle Continues…… March 18, 2013
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Dreams, Love & Grief.5 comments
2 seconds….
2 weeks……..
2 months………
2 years………………
Is there really any difference? No….
Has the pain diminished at all? No….
Has it lessened like a wound as it slowly heals? No……
WHY??? That’s all I want to know……… Why were you taken from me??????………
Early this morning I had another dream, one I did not want to awaken from……… Sal came to visit me. I knew he was coming from Heaven as he has visited me so many times before in my dreams. We were laughing and singing and shopping and dancing and eating…………… All his favorite things. It felt like it lasted for hours, yet not long enough. I knew he was just visiting so I tried hard not to wake up, somehow, I knew I was just dreaming, but it was okay because he was here with me……..the only way I can have him now. Is this my mind playing tricks on me? Or, is this really my baby visiting me every time he knows I am in total utter despair and feel like I can’t go on??? I wish I knew it was really him. He always worried about me, he always cared so much how I felt and did everything he could to keep me happy………. Can you imagine, thru all his pain and suffering he was always worried about me……..his mama…… always telling me he loved me more……….The pain of losing my baby, my bestfriend, my true love………….. is not just emotionally but
excruciatingly physically painful.
SALVATORE ANTONIO VANNI
April 22, 2003 – March 19, 2011
Seconds in the actual realm of my reality…… March 10, 2013
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Uncategorized.Tags: Childhood Cancer, grief, love, Mystic Force Foundation, Sal, Salvatore Vanni, Silvia Vanni
add a comment
Next week, March 19th will make 2 years that you are gone….. that’s 24 months, 730 days, 17,520 hours, ….. no matter how you look at it, its a long time. An eternity really, but, just seconds in the actual realm of my reality. I hear your voice calling me from across the house……
“mooooooooommmmmmmmm”……. I look up, anxious, then realize it’s not really you.
I’m cooking dinner, I glance and see you sitting at the bar playing on your iPad…then you are suddenly gone…………….
I go to your room, I lay in your bed, I hug your Build-a-bears…….. I go in your closet, my fingers caress your shirts that hang so neatly, waiting to be worn……………
I look at your toys, your most prized possessions that Sergio guards for you…..but you will never return to play with them will you????? What will happen to them when Sergio grows up?????????????
What will I do with your “stuff” ?????? I know I will keep it all………. but when will you be back???? When will you come play again??????? When will we cuddle in bed and watch midnight movies??????? When will we have midnight snacks at 4am???????
Can it really be that this will never happen again…….REALLY????????
That’s so hard to accept.
I walk past your pictures, kissing each one as I pass, my lipstick stains on every frame……………..it’s just not the right…….
I talk to you as I drive…………. punch buggy blue, yellow or white…………. did you see it?
“Mom, what did you say?”….. “Oh, nothing,…..I was talking to Sal”………………..
Do my kids think I’m crazy? Do they understand?
Will they remember their baby brother 10 or 20 years from now? Will they remember his laughter? His fighting spirit? How much he loved Club Penguin? His love of music? How much he loved Pitbull? How much he loved to dance? How he always wanted to go out to a Chinese buffet? Will they remember his favorite color was blue, or that he loved to watch Spongebob & iCarly? Will they remember he was the blue Power Ranger? Or that he was Captain America? Will they remember his 80 birthday celebrations? Will they remember his love of swimming and pina coladas in the pool? Will they remember his voice as he sang I am Blue………………..
What will they remember???????????
How do I keep them…………..or anyone……………… from forgetting……………
How do I get people to think of you every day? How do I get people to understand how devastating Childhood Cancer is?
How do I go on living without you?
LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME…….. February 21, 2013
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Uncategorized.add a comment
NO………………
LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME…………………..
EVER……..
Un-Valentines Day February 13, 2013
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Uncategorized.3 comments
How could tomorrow be Valentine’s Day and you are not here???? It’s just not possible. I spent the entire day crying and trying to logically understand it. Yesterday I went with Shari to buy decorations for Chase’s desk at school. I should have known better. It’s just not fair………………
You should be in Chase’s class. I should be decorating your desk and you should be in the basketball game tomorrow night with him. We should all be together. I should be waking up to hugs and kisses and pretending that I didn’t know you bought me a card and chocolates………… You & Chase should be “secretly” trying to steal our champagne tomorrow night………….
What will I do tomorrow morning……….. How will I possibly get up and survive the day without you?????
How will I continue to breathe tomorrow??
How??????????????????????????????????
How can this be. I still don’t not only, understand this, but I have yet to accept it. How could I??????
We always celebrate Valentine’s Day together. You are always my Valentine and I am one of yours……. along with Stephanie and all the nurses at the hospital. How can it be that we are not delivering chocolate hearts this year? How is it that you are not being too shy to hand over the carefully selected boxes of chocolates for all you “girlfriends” and making me do it????????
How is it that we are not snuggling in bed at this very moment awaiting the arrival of Valentine’s Day…….. One of our favorite holidays…… how???????……………..
It’s just so unfathomably unfair and so debilitatingly painful…………
How I wish I could hold you and kiss you one more time…………..but that wouldn’t be enough, would it my beautiful baby????…………………
Nothing could ever be enough…………………..Last Night I Did Not Have A Dream……. December 27, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Dreams, Love & Grief, National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.1 comment so far
Last night I did not have a dream…..
It was real…..
I was laying in bed, as usual in the middle of the night, playing Words With Friends………..
Steven was asleep…..
I looked up and my entire room was foggy…………….I mean completely filled with fog. My first thought was OMG, my house is on fire. But it did not smell like smoke. I got up and turned on all the lights and the “fog” was still there, My bedroom is completely surrounded by huge windows and there was no fog outside, I opened my bedroom door and went downstairs, no smoke or “fog” anywhere and no smell of fire. I came back upstairs, my room was still “foggy” I turned my lights back off and said “Sal, you are here aren’t you.??……………, no reply. But, I did not need one. I just knew at that moment that it was him. I didn’t think to take a picture, I didn’t think to wake up Steven………… I just knew………. I was enveloped in his presence.
Many will think I am crazy, but those who believe will understand. The past few weeks have been so overpoweringly difficult for me. Each breath has been an overwhelming struggle. The times that I have smiled or laughed have later been overshadowed by guilt . How can I be evenly remotely happy for a split second without my baby here? It’s not right, it’s not fair………. How can I smile or laugh when he cannot? It’s excruciatingly difficult to live life like this.
Stevie, my oldest baby turned 21 this week. We had a party to celebrate. I am so very proud of who he has become. I wanted to celebrate, I wanted to be happy, I wanted to sing and tell the world……….. then again, I thought how unfair that Sal is not here to celebrate his brothers birthday…….how unfair that he, himself, will never celebrate, not only 21, but every other milestone in his life. How can I be happy? How can I celebrate? But then again, how can I not…… for Stevie?????????? Birthdays are so important, especially in our family. Sal celebrated over 90 birthdays in his short life……
EVERY day was worthy of a celebration and we all knew that……………..
Such turmoil……………such pain, not just emotional but so very physical. How does one go on living you ask, after your child was viciously taken from you???? Honestly, I have yet to figure that out. You take it day by day, moment by moment, second by second. You sleep some days away, you spend time with friends who understand, you cry 90% of the day, you smile, you ache, you laugh, you smile again, you look for answers that you know you will never get. You do whatever you have to do to get through each day, praying the days will be short and the years will swiftly go by, all the while feeling guilty for any ounce of happiness you are actually able to feel.
I have never believed in ”mediums”……but….…… A cousin told me not too long ago that Sal came to her and amongst other things, said to her the phrase “socks in the drawer” she didn’t know what that meant and I told her I have Sal’s socks and all his other belongings in my drawers and everywhere else he left them. All his stuff remains untouched, so it really didn’t mean much to me. A few days later I was looking for a frame to put one of his pictures. I opened one of my special “drawers”, and his favorite blue socks were on top (I didn’t remember them being there), right underneath was the frame I had been looking for. I almost, literally, fainted when I unwrapped the frame and it said “ Wish you were here” …………… You see, since the very day Sal died , every single night…………… I say (out loud because I’m not sure if he can read my mind) ………….”I love you Papo, I miss you, I Wish You Were Here” EVERY single night for the last 21 months, before I close my eyes, that’s what I say.
Life is so very unfair………………. I don’t know when the time will come where I feel no guilt with a smile, where I feel no remorse for laughing. I know that my baby would want me to be happy, as he always was, but it is so very difficult to achieve any type of true contentment.
Maybe some day I will understand……………
2012 Accomplishments & More November 28, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Love & Grief, National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Uncategorized.2 comments
2012 Accomplishments
- Get out of bed & dressed EVERY morning (85% accomplished)
- Walk For A Cure 2012 @ Oleta River State Park
- Fit For A Cure @ Fitsource Club for Women
- Mix, Mingle & Mangia for a Cure / Meet & Greet the Mayor & First Lady of North Miami Beach @ Racks Soprano Bistro & Cafe
- Pizza, Pasta & More for a Cure @ Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza
- PicturesOnGold.com developed a line of Childhood Cancer Awareness jewelry and partnered with the Mystic Force Foundation to donate a portion of all profits from this line to our foundation
- Nominated & accepted to NAC Contracts For A Cause
- WSVN 7 (FOX affiliate) News Special entitled Mothers Mission which aired during the 5:00 news and then again during the Stand Up 2 Cancer National Telethon
- Miami Herald news article, front page of the Tropical section, titled Giving Children with Cancer a Chance
- City of North Miami Beach proclaimed October 16, 2012 the official Salvatore Vanni Day, presented with the Proclamation and plaques at the city hall meeting by the Mayor and Commissioners
- Superintendant of Miami Dade County Public Schools, Alberto Carvalho (the nations 3rd largest school district) passed Resolution No. 12-155 honoring the life of Salvatore Antonio Vanni and promoting Childhood Cancer Awareness whereby adding lessons on Childhood Cancer to schools curriculum so all children will learn of the prevalence of Childhood Cancer along with other instructional lessons
- Accepted The Ancient Spanish Monastery Foundation’s nomination honoring my husband & myself for “distinguished achievements and contributions providing a legacy for exceptional leadership in S Florida.” Black tie affair takes place April 13th 2013
Some of these things were very difficult to achieve, such as getting out of bed EVERY single morning. It would be much easier to just sleep my life away because during sleep you feel no pain, physical or emotional. But, I know I have 4 kids that rely on me every day as well as thousands of others who count on me for Hope for their future. I can’t let any of them down. I also know Sal would not want me laying in bed crying for him.
He never wanted to see me cry.
The article in the Miami Herald was another great feat. I wrote to every single journalist whose email I could find. My only reply was from Joan Chrissos, the Health Editor. This was her reply to me:
Dear Silvia,
Thank you for your email. We know this an important subject – in fact, childhood cancer was the front page story in our Special Health Reports on cancer, which was published on July 15, 2012:. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/16/2897761/hope-on-the-horizon.html Given that we just published a large story on this subject, we would not be inclined to publish another story so soon. That said, we will look to see if there are any other developments that warrant another story.
Sincerely,Joan Chrissos
Dear Joan, Thank you so much for responding to my email. I did see that article which was wonderful coverage for a disease that most people think of as taboo to speak of. And although you did a story in July, are these kids not worthy of another story during the most important month for childhood cancer? Next month will be breast cancer awareness month and you will see pink everywhere, you will read stories every day about breast cancer survivors, those still fighting and those that lost their battle to this disease. But because of so much awareness thru out the last years with the Susan G Komen foundation there is now over an 80% cure rate for breast cancer. That is wonderful and outstanding. Why can’t we do this for all the children? Are they not worthy of this type of awareness? Have you personally ever been touched by a child with cancer? Has your child ever begged you for help from the pain and suffering they were feeling? Have you ever held the hand of your dying child? I would not wish those things on any parent. That is my mission…..to keep ALL children from suffering like my baby did and ALL parents from feeling this knife stabbing pain that NEVER fades. EVERY day is a day to raise awareness which is why I do not understand your statement “That said, we will look to see if there are any other developments that warrant another story.” Why does Childhood Cancer Awareness Month not warrant another story??? Can you explain that to me please??? Do you know that before my baby was diagnosed I was told to pray for leukemia? Do you know why? Because there is an over 70% cure rate now for childhood leukemia. My child wasn’t so “lucky” he had a very aggressive, very common form of childhood cancer called Neuroblastoma for which there is no cure. Another cancer that has very dismal survival rates is Rhabdomyosarcoma. Do we just forget about these kids and only report on the ones that are doing well?? I don’t think so. “With that being said”,…….. I will continue on my mission and continue to search for people that care. Sincerely, Silvia Dominguez Vanni
Dear Mr Landsberg, I sincerely hope that the the following reply from Joan Chrissos is not the opinion of yourself and others at the Herald. Your paper is one of the largest in the country and to say that Childhood Cancer Awareness Month does not warrant a story is absolutely appalling and unforgivable. I sincerely look forward to hearing from you,
Silvia Dominguez Vanni
As for the Channel 7 news report…..well I sent out over 200 emails to every single reporter whose email I could find including all the sports and weather newscasters. I received only 2 replies. The first was from Carmel Caffero (Carmel on the Case), the second from Patrick Frasier (Help Me Howard); both from WSVN 7. Both conveyed their sincere condolences regarding my baby and both said they would forward my email to their health producer, Angela Carraway. Angela, whom is a beautiful soul both inside and out contacted me immediately and set up an interview.
It’s so sad that it takes so much to get people to listen and to want to help. But it does not keep me from trying…..I keep forging on. My motto is ‘the worst that can happen is that it doesn’t happen’. So I continue to tell my baby’s story, to ask for help, to pass out flyers & postcards, to ask for sponsorship, to ask for donations, to set up fundraisers, to do anything and everything in my power to raise awareness for these kids I so desperately want to save…..for all their parents I so desperately want to keep from feeling the pain I am feeling……for all the kids of the world…..even the healthy ones, because remember, my baby was perfectly healthy, until the day he was diagnosed.
I know 2013 will bring many great things for our kids. I know 2013 will bring continued Hope for so many. I know I will continue my work, my eternal mission in life.
Please save the dates & join us for
Cycle/Walk of Hope for Childhood Cancer
June 9th 2013
A 60 mile bike ride thru beautiful Miami along with a 5k Walk and a Family Fun Day
Cocktails For A Cure
New York City / March 2013
(More details coming soon!!)
Please know that none of this could have been accomplished without the help of so many wonderful
friends, family members and volunteers.
I love you all and will continue to fight for all ‘our’ kids.
“Help Us Find A Cure”……. November 9, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Love & Grief, Uncategorized.2 comments
“To truly understand the depth of the plea “Help Us Find A Cure” your life must be touched by someone who has a disease for which there is no cure. Only then will you feel the anguish and desperation behind each syllable. Please Help Us Find A Cure for Childhood Cancer so no other parent of a child with this devastating disease will feel this pain.”
Silvia Vanni, Sal’s mommy forever
Please Help Us Find A Cure……
Every day people tell me they understand and they know how I feel. That my baby is in a better place and that I should be happy he is no longer in pain, That “there is a reason for everything”, etc, etc………….
Unless you have watched your child suffer the unimaginable, heard him screaming in pain, seen him being humiliated time and time again, listened to his cries for help, or found yourself begging God for mercy………………YOU HAVE NO IDEA…….
I write this blog because it is an outlet for me. Because it lets me express the sheer torture I have to live thru each and every day. Because some people want to know what it’s like for some reason………. Because it helps me to cope……….. Because I love you all and want you to know that although I am dieing inside, I am still alive………………
To some Sal “passed away” 21 months ago. To me it was 2 seconds ago………….I long to hold him, to kiss him, to touch him, to rub his soft beautiful head………….. The pain is as much physical as it is emotional.
How do I describe the depth of my pain?? It is pure inexplicable torture. To have to live the rest of my life without my baby is just unimaginable to me. I wake up and he’s not there, I go to bed and he’s not there…… How could that possibly be??? How could God have taken away my most precious possession? How??????? Why?????
I believe in signs, I always have. I get many signs from my baby. You have to truly believe to see them and accept them. I long for them, I LIVE for them now.
The Holidays are here. Do you realize how difficult this time is for someone who has lost a child? Halloween…..Sal’s favorite time of the year……………….it came and went…..without him. (how could that happen????) I know he would have been Captain America this year. Did I walk thru the Halloween section of any store?……..NO. Did I go to Party City like I have every year for the last 20 something years of my life????………….NO
Did I buy candy for the kids that came to my door……Yes, …but none of Sal’s favorites. Did I personally answer the door and see all the smiling happy faces????……NO……… Did I buy my kids face paint and whatever else they needed to enjoy this night?………….Yes, but nothing Sal would have wanted to use.
Thanksgiving is next…………………….
Sal & I spent Thanksgiving 2007 at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. He had just undergone a 12 hour surgery to remove the massive tumor in his body after 5 grueling, painful & torturous cycles of chemotherapy. His incision had barely healed by Thanksgiving……spanning from the middle of his back across to the front of his body and down to his groin. Can you imagine??? He was only 4 years old and his body had been split in half to remove a lethal foreign body that would eventually take his life.
Thanksgiving 2008 we highly celebrated with 40 family members his very short lived NED status (No Evidence of Disease). 2009 he was neutropenic, (extremely low & fragile immune system) but thankfully home for a few days, we celebrated with only our immediate family, just my husband, myself, my sister, and our 4 other kids. I made every single thing he wanted. He ate and drank to his hearts content…..then we shopped online for EVERYTHING he wanted…………. 2010, Home, happy & off/on pain………………..none of us knew this would be his final Thanksgiving. How could we have known? How could we have understood that? How could we have possibly accepted that?
2011……………..no turkey, no celebrations, no thanking God for all the gifts he has given us……just anguish & tears, tears, and more tears………. 2012???????
Not many can relate. Very few can understand. The death of a child by cancer is a life sentence to the parents of anguish and agony.
A sentence which I wish upon no one……………..
Our very last Thanksgiving together……….
I miss you Papo……..
What Does “Rare” Really Mean??? September 19, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.Tags: broken heart, Childhood Cancer, Children, Education, Family, health, medicine, Mystic Force Foundation, pain, research, Salvatore Vanni, science
1 comment so far
You have heard that Childhood Cancer is rare.
But, is it really???? NO…………..
Have you ever taken your child into an oncology clinic and had to wait 3 or more hours to be seen because there were so many patients ahead of your child?
Have you ever had to wait hours for your baby’s chemo to come up from the pharmacy because the pharmacist had so many other kids chemo orders to fill?
Have you ever had to wait 12 hours in the day hospital with your child feverish and crying in pain before your child could be admitted to the oncology floor because there were no empty beds??
Childhood Cancer is NOT rare, the reason you see very few children with cancer out in the general public is because they are either at a clinic or hospital receiving toxic chemotherapy treatments to try and save their lives, they are inpatient in a hospital fighting to recover from the devastating effects of those chemos and surgeries, or they must remain indoors to avoid contact with germs due to their immunosuppressed state caused by these treatments. Others may be in remission (or no evidence of disease which is the term used for the more aggressive cancers which have a high likelihood of recurring) or may be receiving an experimental treatment and may not look like they have cancer. You may have walked by a child with cancer today and not even known it.
The first set of pictures below show my baby Salvatore, during a time where he was undergoing an intensely painful treatment called 3f8 at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. The treatment itself was torturous, but would you think there was anything wrong with him if you saw him in the street?? The second set of pictures are just a few short weeks after the first, when he was found to have relapsed and had to start high dose chemotherapy…..again.
Raise Awareness!
Let people know Childhood Cancer is NOT rare, it is painful, often times fatal, and it can happen to ANY child at ANY time.
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
Please help raise Awareness any way you can!
Etched Into the Depths of My Soul August 21, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Love & Grief.add a comment
I eat, drink, smell, breathe and dream Childhood Cancer
It never goes away………….….EVER…………….not for a millisecond…….
This is exactly what I mean when I say it’s an eternal struggle to survive………..…
A suffocating……………..debilitating…….………..eternal struggle…………..
My baby had to die for people to start listening and truly understanding how
Childhood Cancer destroys lives……….
That’s why I can’t stop talking about it……………it destroyed my life
I don’t want it to destroy any one else’s………………….
Some will listen……………….actually, more will listen now…………….
Others will continue to simply turn away………………….
My desire to save these kids, to keep them from suffering like my baby did…………..to find a cure for these precious children ………..is Etched into the Depths of my Soul………………..
People ask if I ever think about anything else, well, the answer is simply……NO, Never……………………Not Ever………………
Every decision I make, Every choice I make, Every path I continue on, is somehow connected to Childhood Cancer…….the killer of my baby……..my true love………..my bestfriend………….
Heard It Through The Grapevine………. August 8, 2012
Posted by Waking Up With A Broken Heart in Love & Grief.8 comments
It’s just so hard to accept that you are no longer here……..
I look at your pictures and it’s like I can just reach out and touch you………….how could this be……………..how can this be real?????
I heard it thru the grapevine that someone thinks I need to “get over it already & get on with my life”
Jeese, what does that mean…….. really???
Like a spilled glass of milk…………get over it, clean it up and get another one?????
Like getting a bad grade on your report card??? Just do better on the next one???
Or like losing a favorite glove, just go buy another one…………..
Or do you mean like losing your baby that your carried in your womb for 9 months, loved, nurtured, adored and cared for……… for 7 years, then he died after you watched him suffer and be tortured for half his life…………….., just get over it and forget it ever happened??????
Is that what you mean??
Okay, when….GOD FORBID…….this happens to you, then you can tell me to get over it and get on with my life……….
Until then…
I will continue to cry, suffer, scream, hide, mourn, sleep, avoid people, and do whatever it is I need to do to just survive………
Thank you, though, for you unwanted input………..
Waking Up With A Broken Heart 